I mean in regards to shooting yourself though --- whether or not there is another organism out there that recognises itself as having the same identity as you is irrelevant.

The outcome of your suicide is that you die. Just as before your death, you and the copy did not occupy a merged conciousness, after your death, your own conciousness will still be disconnected from the copy's.
[edit]Just as that morning how you would wake up in your own body (not the copy's), the morning after shooting yourself you still won't wake up in the copy's body[/edit]

The only definition of identity that matters here is as "an instance of conciousness". When the copy process occurs, your instance is cloned so there's now two instances. At that point they instantly fork and become distinctly different identities (albeit with a shared history). When you die, you're still destroying your own identity / conciousness -- and at the point of death there's no connection between your current identity / conciousness and the clone's identity / conciousness.

I see my life as finite but what I do during my lifetime is what really matters. If I could do something right now that would have a lasting positive effect on the world but result in my death it would be worth it to me since I am guaranteed death but I am not guaranteed greatness.

It's not the same thing logically to think you would be living forever on the hard drive. Do you expect to feel your consciousness on the hard drive copy ? Would you be controlling both your real world and hard drive copy? There would be two consciousnesses, two sets of self awareness and two sets of individual thoughts. It's really not the same thing at all. And that assumes it works at all.

Storing your brain on a disk is nothing but an inert copy. Pretty useless, unless the copy is executed in a system that gives it self awareness.

Also, you can not transfer your own self onto a different medium. The moment the copy is 'alive', it will be an independent sentient being, with its own unique experiences. It may have your memories, but it will be no longer you.

Storing your brain on a disk is nothing but an inert copy. Pretty useless, unless the copy is executed in a system that gives it self awareness.

Also, you can not transfer your own self onto a different medium. The moment the copy is 'alive', it will be an independent sentient being, with its own unique experiences. It may have your memories, but it will be no longer you.

Gradually replacing one's brain cells with synthetic ones could do the trick there. Still, all the hormonal influence that is a big deal in relation to one's temperament would be missing.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Tron.

Hard disks do crash, you know? And as it's already been said, an HDD lifespan is shorter than an average person life.

I think hundreds of terabytes is just too little to store human brain's information

How would your brain cells interact with one another? We'd need software that can actually interpret the very-very vague charges in every cell. Obviously, sooner or later we'll see if the interpretation is fullfilling, and maybe expand with an extra opcode or two...

D*mn i hope the developers practice clean and stable code...

I'm surprised no one mentioned Tron.

Hard disks do crash, you know? And as it's already been said, an HDD lifespan is shorter than an average person life.

I think hundreds of terabytes is just too little to store human brain's information

If we store an image of each neuron at a resolution of 512x512x512 with 64 bits per pixel before compression the image of an entire brain would be 97,656,250 terabytes. That is of course the maximum possible space requirement. I am quite sure images could be compressed a great deal and would take up no more then 100 petabytes but this is obviously still far to much to fit on a hard drive so the weights and connections would need to be interpreted as each neuron is scanned. If this information could be extracted a full diagram of a human brain would likely take up no more than 1 terabyte but to extract that information would require a large neural network to visually interpret each neuron.

[quote name='rip-off' timestamp='1304605971' post='4806929']
You wouldn't live forever... the copy of you on the computer might though.

It's essentially the same thing
[/quote]


No, its not. Think of it this way: when you create the artificial "you" but don't die yourself, there are now two of "you". You will look at it and say "here is a copy of me", but the original will still be "you". Your consciousness will not be transferred - only your memories. When the original dies, the copy will still exist, sure, but what you identify as yourself - your consciousness and sense of self - will have died along with the copy.

If I can exist at the same time as something else - that something else cannot be "me".


FWIW, an artificial neural network only approximates the operation of neurons in a biological brain. There is a lot more going on in a brains neuron than you would think - both electrical and chemical processes. To create a copy of a complex living organism is still way way beyond us. Making such a copy take on the originals consciousness and sense of self is something I doubt will ever be possible. Religious people would say that you may be able to create an exact copy of the body, but you cannot transfer the soul. I believe that consciousness is created by something religion refers to as a "soul" - whatever that may be. Maybe one day we will be able to explain it scientifically, and maybe then we will be able to live forever by transferring it into a new body, but if it will ever be possible at all, it will be long after our lifetimes.


However, the technology for full immersion virtual reality may well be possible in the not *too* distant future. I'm told by a good friend of mine, who is doing research in brain-computer interfacing and has spent a lot of time hanging out with neuroscientists, tells me that bidirectional brain interfacing isn't all that far off, but that ethical issues will likely hold it back (eg, how do you perform the initial tests required for an invasive brain interface when doing so could seriously damage the brain, injuring or killing the subject).

[quote name='Tachikoma' timestamp='1304695602' post='4807371']
Storing your brain on a disk is nothing but an inert copy. Pretty useless, unless the copy is executed in a system that gives it self awareness.

Also, you can not transfer your own self onto a different medium. The moment the copy is 'alive', it will be an independent sentient being, with its own unique experiences. It may have your memories, but it will be no longer you.

Gradually replacing one's brain cells with synthetic ones could do the trick there. Still, all the hormonal influence that is a big deal in relation to one's temperament would be missing.
[/quote]
This is an interesting possibility which may or may not be possible in the future. Repairing your existing body may well extend your life indefinitely and is very different from creating a copy like the OP suggested.

I don't know if I would want to live forever though (longer perhaps, but not forever) - think of the overcrowding! (Presumably we will have technology to terraform other planets then, but I think we will probably annihilate each other in a big war first - more people = more conflict and poverty = more destruction and death).

I feel like I'm always recommending stuff for people to read, but I have another recommendation relevant to this thread. A Thousand Deaths is a short story by Orson Scott Card that involves a lot of stuff here, particularly the original dying. Fat Farm is another good one related to this, same author.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1304606879' post='4806935']
[quote name='rip-off' timestamp='1304605971' post='4806929']
You wouldn't live forever... the copy of you on the computer might though.

It's essentially the same thing
[/quote]


No, its not. Think of it this way: when you create the artificial "you" but don't die yourself, there are now two of "you". You will look at it and say "here is a copy of me", but the original will still be "you". Your consciousness will not be transferred - only your memories. When the original dies, the copy will still exist, sure, but what you identify as yourself - your consciousness and sense of self - will have died along with the copy.

If I can exist at the same time as something else - that something else cannot be "me".


FWIW, an artificial neural network only approximates the operation of neurons in a biological brain. There is a lot more going on in a brains neuron than you would think - both electrical and chemical processes. To create a copy of a complex living organism is still way way beyond us. Making such a copy take on the originals consciousness and sense of self is something I doubt will ever be possible. Religious people would say that you may be able to create an exact copy of the body, but you cannot transfer the soul. I believe that consciousness is created by something religion refers to as a "soul" - whatever that may be. Maybe one day we will be able to explain it scientifically, and maybe then we will be able to live forever by transferring it into a new body, but if it will ever be possible at all, it will be long after our lifetimes.


However, the technology for full immersion virtual reality may well be possible in the not *too* distant future. I'm told by a good friend of mine, who is doing research in brain-computer interfacing and has spent a lot of time hanging out with neuroscientists, tells me that bidirectional brain interfacing isn't all that far off, but that ethical issues will likely hold it back (eg, how do you perform the initial tests required for an invasive brain interface when doing so could seriously damage the brain, injuring or killing the subject).

[quote name='Tachikoma' timestamp='1304695602' post='4807371']
Storing your brain on a disk is nothing but an inert copy. Pretty useless, unless the copy is executed in a system that gives it self awareness.

Also, you can not transfer your own self onto a different medium. The moment the copy is 'alive', it will be an independent sentient being, with its own unique experiences. It may have your memories, but it will be no longer you.

Gradually replacing one's brain cells with synthetic ones could do the trick there. Still, all the hormonal influence that is a big deal in relation to one's temperament would be missing.
[/quote]
This is an interesting possibility which may or may not be possible in the future. Repairing your existing body may well extend your life indefinitely and is very different from creating a copy like the OP suggested.

I don't know if I would want to live forever though (longer perhaps, but not forever) - think of the overcrowding! (Presumably we will have technology to terraform other planets then, but I think we will probably annihilate each other in a big war first - more people = more conflict and poverty = more destruction and death).
[/quote]

There is no evidence for this thing you call a soul and it completely contradicts even abstract logic. Where is this soul? I can cut off a person's arms and legs yet their soul is not gone. I can replace organs with new ones yet the person never takes on the personality of the donor. Obviously it must be in their head. If I preform a lobotomy on them they still have feelings, thoughts, and memories. If I cut off their cerebellum they simply have severe problems with motor skills but again they have complex thoughts and feelings.

I can do this for many parts of the brain yet they still exhibit thoughts and feelings. When I get into the limbic system suddenly I am having an effect on this thing they call a soul. But wait... What's this... When I cut out different parts the individual only loses aspects of their soul... It's almost as if this is some type of biological system?! But I thought souls ran on magic and pixie dust?!